June 29 - Just in case anyone was reaching for the remote, President George W. Bush hit his keynote as early as he could while still being polite. After thanking the troops at Fort Bragg, N.C., on Tuesday night, the first two lines of his speech were blindingly simple. The troops here and across the world are fighting a global war on terror, he said. The war reached our shores on September the 11th, 2001.

In other words: forget about the Downing Street memos and Colin Powells now discredited speech at the United Nations. This is one war, against one enemy, making Iraq simply a continuation of the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Or, as Bush put it, Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war. He might as well have stood in front of a picture of the Twin Towers.

Its easy to see why this approach is so attractive to the White House. The presidents response to 9/11 remains a potent memory in public opinion. So potent that it still drives the only positive numbers in the presidents performance ratings. Bush has disapproval ratings of more than 50 percent on the economy, energy and health care, according to the latest Gallup poll. On Iraq, 58 percent disapprove of his handling of the war. But on terrorism, the president has maintained the support of the people: 55 percent approve of his performance.

There are only three major problems with Bushs latest attempt to tie Iraq to 9/11. One is political, another personal, yet another is practical.

Get mad, folks and give Newsweak a call...this whole issue on line is dusturbing in it's obvious slanted 'reporting' and commentary, and besides slitting their own throats for readership, they continue to obstruct and interfere with the progress of the war.

Newsweak morons continue to work like termites to undermine the USA. Everything in this article is 'spun' to create a negative impression upon the reader. These scumbags are not Americans, no matter how much they may protest otherwise - they are allies of the Islamo-fascists.

The world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, has been offered sanctuary in Iraq if his worldwide terrorist network succeeds in carrying out a campaign of high-profile attacks on the West over the next few weeks.

Intelligence sources say the Saudi dissident believed responsible for the bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and a US military barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1998, is running out of options for a safe haven.

He is now thought to have overcome his initial rejection of Saddam Hussein, whom he regarded as an exploiter of the Islamic cause rather than a true believer, and is considering the offer of a bolt-hole from which he can continue to mastermind terrorism on a global scale.

A US counter-terrorist source said yesterday: "Our State Department issued a worldwide warning on December 11. We have solid information that many of the groups operating under bin Laden's patronage are planning 'spectaculars' to coincide with the period leading up to and through the millennium celebrations.

"They want to inflict maximum loss of life in return for publicity. Now we are also facing the prospect of an unholy alliance between bin Laden and Saddam. The implications are terrifying.

"We might be looking at the most wanted man on the FBI's target list gaining access to chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons courtesy of Iraq's clandestine research programmes."

The US intelligence community has been squeezing bin Laden's finances steadily for several years. His personal fortune of anything up to £500m has been whittled down to single figures, although funds continue to flow into the coffers of his Al Qaeda - Arabic for "The Base" - organisation from wealthy individuals in the Middle East.

These include members of the Saudi royal family opposed to American involvement in the region and rich businessmen in the Gulf States hoping to buy themselves immunity if bin Laden's Islamic revolution ever manages to overthrow their governments.

But the bulk of his income comes from acting as middleman and fixer for the Afghan opium producers. According to the United Nations, Afghanistan supplies 75% of the world's opium and its heroin derivatives in a narcotics' trade worth an estimated £4bn to £6bn a year.

The Taleban religious fanatics who control 85% of Afghanistan need the cash to fund their never-ending civil wars. They gave bin Laden refuge because he had connections with the Chechen and Russian mafias and their access to money-laundering in the West.

According to Middle Eastern intelligence sources, bin Laden rakes off anything up to £500m a year from his pivotal role in the drugs' trade. It is more than enough to underwrite the cost of mujahideen training camps in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan and the provision of weapons for bin Laden's personal war against the US and its allies.

Up to 20 Islamic extremist groups operate under the loose control of Al Qaeda.

They include Algeria's GSPC, responsible for the casual murder of civilians in the country's Kabylie region, and a network for recruiting Muslim volunteers to fight in the Balkans and Chechnya.

Al Qaeda's tentacles spread across Europe and the Middle East, including the United Kingdom. Up to 2000 young Muslims a year were enlisted in Britain between 1995 and 1998 to fight militant Islam's cause.

They received basic survival and unarmed combat training in Britain, and were then flown to various camps in Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to be instructed in the use of firearms and explosives. A few were involved in combat in the latter stages of the Bosnian conflict.

The spread of bin Laden's influence has spawned some strange alliances.

Israel's Mossad agency is currently helping the Russians identify known fundamentalist militants in Chechnya. British, Italian and US agents reportedly co-operated with Slobodan Milosevic's regime to root out veterans of the 1979-89 Afghan-Russia war while they were themselves on opposite sides in Bosnia.

The Americans have also resorted to hi-tech destabilisation. Various agencies inserted "sniffer" software programmes into the banking systems of Europe and the Middle East from the mid-1990s onwards.

These were targeted on known or suspected accounts for bin Laden's front men in Holland, Britain, Switzerland, Italy, the US and the Caribbean.

When large amounts of cash were moved around, the programmes flagged up the transactions. Computer experts then transferred or deleted the cash electronically to starve Al Qaeda of funding.

Bin Laden has almost outstayed his welcome in Afghanistan. Despite the Taleban's public declaration of protection for a "guest", the regime is suffering from international sanctions as long as it harbours him.

The Americans have a continually updated plan for a special forces' team to snatch him from his mountain lair in the Hindu Kush.

But they look back to a Soviet raid in the same area in April, 1986, when three battalions of elite Spetznaz commandos went in after a local Afghan commander. Few came back.

Bin Laden is understood to have selected Yemen, his father's birthplace, as a first alternative. But the Yemenis could not protect him from the wrath of the West or Saudi Arabia. Chechnya was his second choice, but the province is being ground under Russia's military jackboot.

That leaves Iraq, and the potential for an alliance which would be everyone else's nightmare.

Thanks, bitt. This is disgraceful, and all the more so, because it is too obvious that these liberals in the anti-Bush spin machine know the "truth of the matter." If their Arkancide boy and his ruthless wife were in the White House, and IF (theoretical only) they had launched the exact same war on terror as has our president, this same bunch of "journalists" (rag meisters) would be singing the Arkies' praises.

Good post, bitt. We should watch what is being written out there in LoonyVille.

Char :)

10
posted on 07/28/2005 3:55:02 PM PDT
by CHARLITE
(I propose a co-Clinton team as permanent reps to Pyonyang, w/out possibility of repatriation....)

""In other words: forget about the Downing Street memos and Colin Powells now discredited speech at the United Nations. ""

How about this: In other words: forget about nick berg, 3000 human beings slaughtered on 11 Sept, decades of terrorist attacks against Americans, hundreds of thousands of muslims slaughtered at the hands of the dictators hussein, mutant medieval thugs, and on and on and on......... Newspeak can go to hell - useless rag.......

11
posted on 07/28/2005 4:01:05 PM PDT
by InsureAmerica
(the only free cheese is in a mousetrap)

I had a lefty friend who had a 'taking the center of the board' chess analogy for why he thought we went in Iraq. I didn't get it at first. Upon further reflection, he may be right. What better place to concentrate both our efforts and their efforts in this global confrontation? Analogous to Bush's "Taking the war to them" speach...Didn't Sun Tzu say something about if you know you have to fight the next most important things to decide are when and where to fight?

12
posted on 07/28/2005 4:01:43 PM PDT
by Lone Red Ranger
(What's right is more important than who's right. Glad we're Right.)

Clintoon and his 'advisors' left us open to terrorism, and that's that. Most Americans wish that the leftys and the MSM would just shut up and do something helpful.

I only see these rags (Time, Newsweak) in offices now, and if emplooyees would make a stink about the ludictous costs and bias, maybe the bosses would send back a statement saying "Cancelled due to disinterest in your agendae".

14
posted on 07/28/2005 4:17:59 PM PDT
by bitt
('We will all soon reap what the ignorant are now sowing.' Victor Davis Hanson)

We will continue to hear this mantra over and over. The objective of Newsweek and evry other neocommunist you hear spouting it has little to do with Bush. The whole purpose is to divert attention from Willie's connection with OBL, Saddam, Iraqi oil money and thei frequent pre-9/11 contacts.

To prove Willie's involvement (that's the evidence Berger was destroying) is to implicate Hillie. The leftists back Hillie and must block/hide anything that might hurt her chances with the normal voters (the dem voters are too stupid to decide for themselves). Attacking W draws attention from Willie. That is one reason that an honest investigation of UN corruption is so important. If Volker dug deep enough, he'd find Willie (or his pardon buying surrogates) at the same trough as the UN thieves.

17
posted on 07/28/2005 4:22:41 PM PDT
by Tacis
("Democrats - The Party of Traitors, Treachery and Treason!")

Who cares!! The best to hurt these morons is by boycotting them. Don't buy their crap anymore. Buy the Weekly Standdard or National Review or the American Spectator. I haven't bought a magazine from the LSM in years. When they call for renewing my membership I say get lost. I suggest you do the same. Those that already buy this crap are already diehard liberals and as circulation wanes even futher, the more liberal they will get.

I agree Bitt however I noticed over the years an inverse relationship between the circulation numbers and the bias or tilt of these magazines. It is economic imperative that pushes them to the left on the premise that those who will stay with them through thick and thin are those whose idiological bent is well served. Has they not beeen part of a huge muti-media conglomerate, I believe they would have all but dissapeared given the fundamental changes that occurred in the world of print media over the last ten of fifteen years.

Picking Iraq as the "center of the board" makes sense. Osama was dug in in Afghanistan, so we had to start the fight there-but pulling the battle line into Iraq gives us a better advantage for these reasons: 1)Saddam was an ongoing & serious threat to us and the region. He defied the UN and there was a real potential he would ally with OSAMA. 2)Iraq had at least the framework of an infrastructure with cities, modern conveniences and the oil fields to support them. Afghanistan, on the other hand, is geographically, one of the most inhospitable battlegrounds in the world. 3) Iraqis are more educated and more tolerant than other ME populaces and they had been brutally repressed for decades under Saddam so they were ready for freedom. 4) We knew we had to keep a huge fighting force in the ME while we looked for the rats nest that was Al Queda & our air bases had closed Saudi Arabia so using Iraq as a staging place was sound. I just don't understand why some people say our forces should fight terror only in Afghanistan...that would put us at a big disadvantage.

In in 1998, an Arab intelligence officer, who knows Saddam personally, predicted in Newsweek: "Very soon you will be witnessing large-scale terrorist activity run by the Iraqis." The Arab official said these terror operations would be run under "false flags" --spook-speak for front groups--including bin Laden's organization.

Then there were the predictions by an Iraqi with ties to Iraqi intelligence, Naeem Abd Mulhalhal, in Qusay's own newspaper several weeks before the attacks that stated bin Laden would demolish the Pentagon after he destroys the White House and bin Laden would strike America on the arm that is already hurting. (referencing a second IRAQI sponsored attack on the World Trade Center). Another reference to New York was [bin Laden] will curse the memory of Frank Sinatra everytime he hears his songs. (e.g., New York, New York) which identified New York, New York as a target. Mulhalhal also stated, The wings of a dove and the bullet are all but one and the same in the heart of a believer." which references an airplane attack.

The Arabic language daily newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabic also cited the cooperation between Iraq, bin Laden and Al December 1998 editorial, which predicted that President Saddam Hussein, whose country was subjected to a four day air strike, will look for support in taking revenge on the United States and Britain by cooperating with Saudi oppositionist Osama Bin-Laden, whom the United States considers to be the most wanted person in the world. This info is in the link provided below. How could these people have had foreknowledge without Iraq being involved?

Warning...slow loading .pdf file. This was from a lawsuit filed against Iraq after 9/11...the court ruled against Iraq.

There was also another lawsuit filed by the family of John ONeill (a former FBI agent who captured Ramzi Yousef after the 1993 WTC bombings) after he died in the WTC on 9/11. His personal files from his years of traveling around the world investigating al-Qaeda are were used as evidence in the lawsuit. The evidence includes documents unearthed in the headquarters of the Mukhabarat (Iraq's intelligence service) and information gleaned from the interrogation of both al-Qaeda and Iraqi prisoners. (Link below). It also quotes Vincent Cannistraro, the former CIA counter-terrorism chief, who stated in October 2000 that Iraq had been wanting to carry out terrorist attacks, and that the Iraqi military had been in contact with Osama bin Laden.

We know from these IIS documents that beginning in 1992 the former Iraqi regime regarded bin Laden as an Iraqi Intelligence asset. We know from IIS documents that the former Iraqi regime provided safe haven and financial support to an Iraqi who has admitted to mixing the chemicals for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. We know from IIS documents that Saddam Hussein agreed to Osama bin Laden's request to broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda on Iraqi state-run television. We know from IIS documents that a "trusted confidante" of bin Laden stayed for more than two weeks at a posh Baghdad hotel as the guest of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.

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